Providing rear view mirrors upon bicycles, motorcycles and the like has proven extremely desirable to increase the safety of operation and accordingly to minimize accidents. Some rear view mirrors are mounted upon a bracket which is clamped along the length of the handlebar and others have been mounted upon the crossbars and diagonal bars of the cycle chassis, as for example that illustrated in Cululi et al. U.S. Letters Pat. No. 3,981,567 granted Sept. 21, 1976. Locating the mirror along the length of the cycle handlebar represents a problem from the standpoint of obstruction of the field of view by the body of the rider so that there have been proposed structures relying upon mounting of the mirror in the end of the handlebar. One type of such a mirror assembly is shown in Aurness U.S. Letters Pat. No. 702,763 granted June 17, 1902. More recently, it has been proposed to pivotably mount the mirror upon an insert member which is disposed within the end of the handlebar.
It is desirable to be able to effect substantially universal pivotal movement of the mirror assembly relative to the cycle handlebar in order to provide the proper field of view for a particular rider. However, frequently universal joints produce undesired or inadvertent movement of the mirror from the desired position as a result of impacts, vibration and the like to which the cycle is exposed. A further problem that occurs with respect to rear view mirror on cycles is the tendency for the mirror to shatter or crack when the mirror is fabricated from glass when the mirror is subjected to impacts. Moreover, it is desirable to use a convex mirror to increase the field of vision accorded thereby.
Various techniques for improving the impact resistance of mirrors have been proposed, as for example those shown in Perison U.S. Letters Pat. No. 3,776,618 granted Dec. 4, 1973 and Kurz U.S. Letters Pat. No. 3,843,236 granted Oct. 22, 1974, but there has remained a problem with respect to providing an adequate impact absorbing mounting for a convex mirror of the type that would be desirably employed in connection with cycles.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved novel rear view mirror assembly for mounting in the ends of a cycle handlebar and which provides both controllable universal pivotal movement of the mirror assembly and a highly desirable level of impact absorbing properties.
It is also an object to provide such a mirror assembly wherein the impact absorbing portion of the assembly also prevents the shattering of the mirror.
Another object is to provide such a mirror assembly which may be readily fabricated from economically produced component parts to provide a long lasting and rugged assembly.
Still another object is to provide a novel method for assembling and adjusting a rear view mirror in the ends of the handlebar of a cycle or the like.